Lewis Pullman is having an extended moment. Having impressed in Marvel fare, competed with the flyboys as Bob in Top Gun: Maverick and showed off his pipes and moves in The Testament of Ann Lee, he’s dipping his toes in sentimentality and romance in this, a whimsical adap of Shelby Van Pelt’s bestseller. He’s Cameron, a young drifter on a personal mission along the Cascadia coast, stuck in the small town of Sowell Bay when his crappy camper van conks out. Strapped for cash to fix it, a cheery local (Colm Meaney, emanating kindness) gets him a temp job night cleaning at the local aquarium.
Netflix
The job is available because widowed Tova (Sally Field) has bust her ankle and can’t polish and mop as thoroughly as she’d like. Tova isn’t only nursing a sprain, she’s heartbroken from long-term grief and the growing realisation that her age and loneliness might mean she needs to leave her lush waterside cabin for a nursing home. Tova chats about all her feelings when she cleans to the aquarium’s octopus, Marcellus, who narrates his own version of events (voiced soothingly by Alfred Molina) as we follow a trio of arcs of three lonely beings who find unexpected connection.
Diyah Pera/Netflix
A rom-com of sorts that is gently amusing and romantic in platonic love as Tova and Cameron create a slow bond (though he also tries, spikily and entertainingly, to woo a local surf shop owner), Remarkable Bright Creatures is a balm to watch. Filmed in Deep Cove, near Vancouver, the locations are travel porn alone – a beautiful backdrop for the halting relationship between both Tova and Cameron, and Tova and a would be paramour.
Netflix
While Marcellus is entirely CG (and excellently rendered), the bright spark between a wounded OAP and hurting young man feels authentic and moving thanks to natural chemistry between Pullman and Field. With nuanced performances that travel from comedy to deep sadness, both make their characters real within a picture postcard setting. The only false note is the gaggle of horny retired friends that Tova has, their hijinks in emotional relief to the quiet work Field is doing.
Diyah Pera/Netflix
Though the ‘twist’ might be predictable and the action gentle, Remarkably Bright Creatures is the sort of cosy hug of a picture that might take tear ducts by surprise as well as prompt googling trips to British Columbia. Deep Cove is likely to have a busy summer and Pullman net more fans.
When watching Damien McCarthy’s Irish folk horror it’s impossible not to think about The Shining – and that’s no bad thing. Stephen King’s creeper, and the movie from Kubrick, haunt the odyssey of a misanthropic, depressed and alcoholic writer, Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) who’s trying to crack the end of his bestselling trilogy and heads to the Emerald Isle to spread the ashes of his dead parents in a spot they apparently loved. Oh, and during Halloween. Though we see Ohm at home (and during the course of proceedings, in a hospital room) the tale essentially unspools as a bottle episode, confined to the environs of the dated and remote Billberry Woods Hotel. A chintzy, rustic place where goats high on magic mushrooms butt the parked cars, the proprietor tells children stories of local witches who lure victims to a hellscape below ground and the honeymoon suite is locked up to prevent some mysterious horror, it’s the sort of establishment most of us might shudder at and pull a u-turn in the drive.
But Ohm is a glutton for punishment. Harbouring psychological wounds carried from childhood and a mean streak a mile wide, he glugs whiskey in the bar, belittles and burns a fan bellboy and declares the barkeep’s assertion that a witch is trapped in the honeymoon suite as ‘hokum’. He’s just here to write and not engage in such nonsense. But all work and no play makes Ohm a dull boy. A dark night of the soul brings him close to the glimmer of death and sets him on a quest to find a missing woman (Florence Ordesh), investigate the suite upstairs and come to terms with demons – his own and those that lurk.
McCarthy’s set up ignores mobile phones from the get-go (no inelegant ‘oh, there’s no signal here’ nonsense, they simply do not exist) and builds a plan of the hotel for audiences to understand. The honeymoon suite is reached by a lurching lift, there are a series of cellars under the hotel, woods surround the property and the hotel is on the cusp of closure for the season. That leaves Ohm alone to battle what he finds upstairs, no staff or passing traffic. And what he discovers is genuinely unsettling – production and sound design combining to create a suite of nightmares, jump-scares deftly deployed to ratchet bpm. It’s impressive how terrifying McCarthy can make the drawing of a chalk circle in the dark or a rabbit TV show on a flickering screen. And the increasing compression of spaces is unpleasantly claustrophobic: scaling the action down from hotel complex to single suite, to a tight-squeeze dumb-waiter system and the corner of a dank cellar. (Definite Blair Witch vibes.)
Key to selling the scares is Scott – playing an asshole who deserves comeuppance, but with enough soul to deserve our sympathy and good will too. To see such a sardonic man who has no magic in his life understand the darkness at the edge of our physical world feels authentic, his catharsis earned. His unpicking of Ohm’s pain as he’s terrorised makes Hokum a satisfying horror: both thrillingly scary and emotionally resonant– might make you reconsider staying in a rural hostelry.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of Black Bear/Neon Hokum is in cinemas now
Twenty years after aspiring journalist Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) finally earned the grudging respect of Runway magazine maven – and thinly disguised Anna Wintour avatar – Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) via frenemy and tough love shenanigans with assistant Emily (Emily Blunt) and stylist Nigel (Stanley Tucci), the quartet returns. Of course. In the light of Maverick suiting up again and the SATC girls stepping back into their Manolos, legacy sequels and nostalgia-core is big business (Dirty Dancing revisit incoming). The question of whether beloved characters should be exhumed is moot, it’s whether the 2.0 can stand on its own feet as something more than mere fan service, with plenty of cocklewarming callbacks.
Macall Polay
Devil 2 manages the trick, but only just. In 2026 Andy is a serious award-winning journalist who’s just been made redundant as her paper downsizes, and returns to the Runway offices as features editor after Miranda suffers near-cancellation for her accidental promotion of sweat shops. Nigel is still consigliere to Miranda, Emily is now the head of Dior. There’s a new assistant, Amari, who schools Miranda in what she can’t say during her withering put-downs (Simone Ashley) and a plot that revolves around Andy having to prove her worth to Miranda again as publishing becomes irrelevant in a world of social media. There’s fashion, Diet Coke placement, celebrity cameos (Donatella Versace and Gaga working better than others) plus an awkward romantic sub-plot and a Justin Theroux turn that both feel surplus to requirement.
Macall PolayMacall Polay
It’s hitting all the right notes of the original (female empowerment, OTT fashion, a nice nod to cerulean) and Streep does get to flex that calm delivery and imperious stare while MVP Blunt brings her excellent comedic timing (biggest laugh is her Italian gag with Versace). But the story situates Miranda as a victim from the start and diminishes her bite, which was a huge part of the deliciousness of the first film. Though she has more fashion, she has fewer words; leaving Andy and Emily to spat in a corporate takeover narrative that doesn’t feel high stakes enough.
Macall Polay
Though the denouement of the characters is placed very firmly in this decade and current media landscape, it feels non-essential to non-fans – the pleasure to be found in seeing ‘Spring Florals’ as the theme of the Runway Ball at the Met, understanding why one should never go upstairs in Miranda’s brownstone, the significance of soup in the canteen and the return of a revamped lumpy blue sweater. And Milan looks glam for a third-reel romp. It’s all perfectly entertaining, without being, as Miranda would say, groundbreaking.
Macall Polay
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of 20th Century Studios The Devil Wears Prada 2 is in cinemas now
That a biopic made with the blessing of the Jackson estate would be a hagiograph of the King of Pop should hardly surprise – so don’t arrive at this rhinestone-covered account of MJ’s rise to superstardom expecting any reference to his personal life or allegations made against him. There’s potential for a probing character study of a damaged Peter Pan figure and the horrors of fame, but this is not that film.
The movie went into reshoots and was recut after a historical legal NDA was unearthed preventing any deviation from the narrative of The Gospel According to St Michael – so leaving the elephant in the room out of the equation, is Jackson, purely as an artist, brought alive?
Glen Wilson/Lionsgate
Certainly, if you want to see spot-on facsimiles of his most famous pop-culture moments then Antoine Fuqua’s almost mechanical recreations hit the spot. We meet Michael as an Indiana moppet in 1966, the 10-year-old lead singer of a sibling band with stars in his eyes and belt strap welts across his back. Terrorised by unforgiving patriarch Joe Jackson (Colman Domingo with gimlet-eyed intensity) who doesn’t intend to work in a steel mill for the rest of his life, Michael (Juliano Valdi) and his brothers are drilled in their performance with the promise of violence, regardless of the time or the quiet pleas of their mother (Nia Long). Joe’s vicarious drive for fame and fortune takes the Jackson 5 up the charts, to Motown and onto LA where Michael’s growing obsession with animal ‘friends’ and his need to escape his father coalesces.
Glen Wilson/Lionsgate
As a young man denied a childhood, suffering from vitiligo and squirming under constantly being called ‘big nose’ by his Dad, Michael (Jackson’s real-life nephew, son of Jermaine, Jaafar Jackson) begins to craft his own identity; musically and physically. He starts work on the solo album Off the Wall, sets off on his life-long plastic surgery odyssey, hones his uniform (make-up, aviators, military chic, sequinned socks) and learns to moonwalk.
Glen Wilson/Lionsgate
There’s no denying that Jackson is uncanny as Jacko; nailing his breathy voice, the dazzling smile, the dance moves and the performative shyness. And there’s also no denying the global success of MJ with the bangers that are reenacted with his real vocals. Beat It, Thriller, his electric turn of Billie Jean at the Motown 25 celebration and the iconic Bad tour showstopper are highlights and genuine cultural touchpoints, while fans are catered for with extended worship of his performance of Human Nature at the 1984 Jackson 5 Victory Tour. The dazzle and sparkle, the spins and tippy-toe flexes are all on point, the costumes unimpeachable, the hair and make-up masterful.
Glen Wilson/Lionsgate
But the film comes unstuck in trying to find the soul. Michael is defined only by his hurt and his publicised childlike, messianic qualities (his menagerie of pets, his visits to hospitalised kids, the donation of his payout from Pepsi to a burns unit, his love of Neverland). We are never invited in to understand his unique and bewildering point of view. ‘I want to be a mystery,’ he tells his team, and he certainly remains that here. His motivation, his damage is kept as intangible as all the CGI animals (yes, even Bubbles is rendered in uncanny valley visuals). And leaving the film in 1988 with the promise ‘his story continues…’ allows for any later unpleasantness to go unaddressed.
Glen Wilson/Lionsgate
Viewed merely as a jukebox musical, Michael works – as shiny and showbiz as a bejewelled white glove. As an intimate portrait of an artist and a person, it fails to wrestle with the man in the mirror.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of Lionsgate Michaelis in cinemas now
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told toJANE CROWTHER
Actor Simone Ashley is exploring her first passion via a new EP, Songs I Wrote in New York. Greg Williams joins her during two studio sessions over the past year as she finds her sound.
When I meet The Devil Wears Prada 2’s Simone Ashley at producer Fraser T. Smith’s [multi Ivor Novello and Grammy Award winner] Studio outside Henley-on-Thames in early January 2025, I jokingly ask him how the actor is doing outside of her natural filming habitat. ‘Amazingly. We wouldn’t be working with her if she wasn’t any good,’ he grins. ‘We got together doing some film stuff, and then we wrote a few songs, and to me it was apparent that Simone should make an album. So we talked about it, and we’re making the leap. It’s going to be amazing.’
The duo are in the process of finalising vocals, mastering and mixing Simone’s debut EP, Songs I Wrote in New York out now. I’ve heard her sing when we hung out in Cannes previously during the film festival, but never as she lays down some tracks. She welcomes me into the room and explains what inspires her to write. When I previously heard her sing in Cannes, it had a bluesy feel. This, she says, is very different. ‘This is more soul pop. And we’ll play you another one that I wrote with Amy Wadge, who’s just amazing. She does a lot of Ed Sheeran’s music. So, very ballad, love-based kind of songs. It started off as a ballad. And then what’s so amazing about Fraser is, I’ll bring an idea, and he can just completely flip it. It was amazing that day, because the sunlight came into the studio, and suddenly there was so much positivity. And I wrote that song in Wales with Amy when I was in a bit of a dark place. It was just shit weather, and cloudy, and dark. And then when it came to the day of recording it, Fraser knows the kind of beats that really resonate with my heart. He started playing this beat, and the sun just came in. And suddenly all these lyrics that came from a place of heartbreak, suddenly turned really positive.’
A lot of these songs were inspired by a summer that I had in New York when I first moved there. Working on The Devil Wears Prada 2 was intense – this was the original cast, the original producers, in New York. It was summer in Manhattan and I was in New York, and I was having the time of my life. That really affected how I wrote the songs
Simone and Fraser continue to talk through their process and the sounds they’re using, their enthusiasm infectious. As Fraser plays some beats, Simone sings along. ‘When I was working with Amy, I gave her some of my favourite chords,’ she explains between takes. ‘I’m really drawn to B-flat major, F major, A-flat major for some reason. It sounds so heartbreaking and nostalgic to me, that kind of chord progression. So we just laid out these chords, and I was almost rapping – just riffing all these different things. And then it’s hours of mixing and work with Louis and Fraser. A team effort.’
We meet up again in January in LA, during Golden Globes season – and Simone is working with another musical maestro, multi-award-winning Diane Warren at her Real Songs Studio in Hollywood. The 17-time Oscar nominee is working with Simone on her album, impressed by her songwriting and voice. And Diane isn’t one to blow smoke up asses – her straight-talking manner is apparent the minute I walk through the door. There’s a jar just inside the room that Diane describes in her beautifully fruity language as ‘a jar of fucks – in case you want one’.
Diane has collaborated with Simone on a couple of songs destined for her album. ‘I’m excited,’ the songwriter tells me. ‘She’s an amazing singer.’ Simone has laid down one of Diane’s compositions earlier today and now they are working together on finessing it. Diane plays the melody on the guitar to accompany Simone’s soulful vocals. ‘It’s very exciting to see the magic of when the right artist finds the right song,’ Diane says, comparing Simone’s sound to Sade. ‘I mean, you’re a great singer, and you’re a great artist, and you have your own thing,’ she says. ‘You already have an audience built in that loves you, and loves you from your other work. But once they hear you sing, and they hear you sing these songs – you’re going to have a whole other thing going.’
Over the previous Christmas break, Diane has written a song that she has gifted her new protege. ‘I just write songs that I like. A lot of the time, I don’t even know who the fuck they’re for. But this is perfect for you.’ Simone is beaming. ‘This is a “pinch me” moment for sure.’ she admits. ‘I mean, Diane Warren is the songwriter. It’s a big fucking honour to be here.’ The EP, Simone explains, is inspired by her own experiences while acting. ‘A lot of these songs were inspired by a summer that I had in New York when I first moved there. Working on The Devil Wears Prada 2 was intense – this was the original cast, the original producers, in New York. It was summer in Manhattan and I was in New York, and I was having the time of my life. That really affected how I wrote the songs, and what I brought into the studio. It was what I was experiencing on set, and outside when I wasn’t filming; the nights I had out in New York; the people I met; the friendships and relationships that I had… It all bled into the music.’
She goes into the booth to record some vocals under Diane’s direction, honing the tone of the song with different tweaks each time. I ask Diane how she thinks being an actor impacts Simone’s craft in the studio. ‘I think it helps, because you’re a storyteller in another world, too. It’s not just singing a song. You have to convince someone that it’s real. That’s what you do as an actor, and that’s what you do here. And she knows her lines!’ Diane suggests we have a listen back of the work the two have completed together so far, a song under construction, being shaped. ‘What a fucking smash,’ Diane says when it ends. ‘Come on. I think she’s going to have a really big, huge record.’
A couple of weeks later I catch up with Simone in New York during a particularly fierce snowstorm. Now that she’s two years into making her music a reality, I ask what it was that made her want to pursue it, having had such success with acting in Sex Education, Bridgerton and the upcoming, Devil Wears Prada sequel. ‘Something that I’ve always carried with me throughout my life, and especially in my career – I never want to look back and be like, “I wish I gave something a go,”’ she says. ‘I never really wanted to have too many feelings of regret. Regret is something that sometimes you can’t control. But within the things I could control, I always wanted to make sure that I gave it my best shot. I wanted a professional project with my music, a body of work. I never wanted it to come across as a hobby. So about four years ago, I really started talking to people in my team, and was trying to figure out a way of meeting the right people, and finding the right people who had the same belief and vision as me. Perhaps part of me always knew that something like this was inevitably going to happen. But it was more just taking the first initial steps and actually breaking the seal.’
Though she’s only recently started writing songs in collaboration with Fraser, Amy Wadge, Diane Warren, Dan and Tolu, Simone has been writing music since her teens. ‘Music has always been something that I had a very strong instinct with. I grew up playing piano, and learning how to write music. I classically trained as a singer. I always write in my journal – lyrics or just ideas – and I would maybe try to match the beats to certain lyrics that I had down, or certain ideas that I had down. When I was working with Dan and Tolu in Brooklyn, that was a very specific form of songwriting – we were just talking for hours. It was the same with Amy Wadge, we just chatted for about six hours, and then we would pull things from our conversations and what we were feeling, and try to convey that conversation in a song, or certain chords would match that feeling. Those are my favourites sometimes, because you take something like that, and then maybe a year later, in the studio with Fraser, it turns into something quite different. But what was important in all of my songwriting process, was that I wanted my lyrics and my songs to feel inclusive – especially writing from a personal place about whatever I was going through, whether it’s a relationship or friendship or a feeling that I had; it was important to me that my audience can listen to it and relate to it in a way.’
I ask which artists she’s been inspired by herself and she smiles. ‘When I was a kid, my dad used to play vinyl all the time, just 24/7. So I grew up listening to music since I was a baby, and I could list a million different bands, solo artists, and so many different people.
‘But I think one thing that I’ve learned throughout my career as an actress is to just always compare yourself to yourself. It’s such a strong way to do it. I’m on my own journey with my own timeline. I don’t think I’m comparing it to anyone else’s… yet.’
She admits she’s been ‘surprised in a good way’ by the album that is coming together. ‘We actually have this body of work that, at one point, was living in our imaginations, and then was living in the studio, and living in comps and demos. And now it’s something that I’m almost there to share with everyone…’
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS As told to JANE CROWTHER Songs I Wrote in New Yorkis out now
‘Can you even be a cowboy without cows?’ asks Callie-Rose, the little daughter of Colorado cowpoke Dusty (Josh O’Conner) who has lost his generational ranch to a wildfire, leaving him houseless and untethered. It’s a question writer/director Max Walker-Silverman (who previously produced A Love Song) asks in this delicate ‘slow cinema’ look at the meaning of home and the balm of community – who are any of us without our possessions? Having been almost pathological self sufficient to the point of breaking up his marriage before the fire crept over the ridge to gobble his ancient barn, family house and wooded land; taciturn Dusty finds himself trying to repair both his life and his relationship with his cute-as-a-button kid.
Jesse Hope/Bleecker Street
Moving into a FEMA–provided trailer park in the middle of the desert with other victims of the fire and given a construction job on the highway, he struggles to recognise himself or how to get back to his comfort zone. ‘That’s not me,’ he dolefully tells his former mother-in-law, Bess (Amy Madigan) of the work holding a stop/go sign, his meetings with the bank in the hope of a loan proving fruitless in the wake of a high-severity burn. He’s got no family except for that of his ex and her new boyfriend, his meagre savings won’t buy him much respite…
Jesse Hope/Bleecker Street
If that sounds bleak, it’s not. In the vein of Nomadland and Train Dreams, Rebuilding places faith in people, kindness and found community. And the healing power of a beautiful landscape, a song sung at dusk and the soft nose of a horse nuzzling a palm. Quiet compassion is woven through the ordinary struggles of Dusty; the auctioneer trying to get an above-value price on the cattle he has to sell, his ex (Meghann Fahy) and her sweet partner supporting him emotionally, in the food and companionship offered by the trailer park dwellers, in the notice in the closed library window that grants free wifi to the displaced people who flock there to fill in their online insurance forms. The folk in this south-west corner of Colorado may be economically challenged but they are rich in gorgeous sunsets and hope in starting over. A reclusive trailer park inhabitant breaks his silence when he finds it in the shoots of fresh buds from a charred tree, Dusty’s neighbour (Kali Reis) looks for it within her belief that she still likes nowhere better than this very spot, and the cowboy will ultimately rediscover his purpose in protecting a new herd.
Jesse Hope/Bleecker Street
O’Conner – so soulful in God’s Own Country – is built for such a role. Always watchful, whether observing workers clearing smoking ash from the ruins of his house or the roll of a silver river through purple twilight, he’s able to convey so much of Dusty’s feelings without ever saying a word. The cast around him is equally as affecting – particularly naturalistic Lily LaTorre as Callie-Rose and Madigan turning her recent horrific performance in Weapons on its head with little more than a warm cameo that leaves a mark as sure as the fireline.
Jesse Hope/Bleecker Street
As a small, quiet and almost slight take on hardship, Rebuilding takes no big swings, but with its faith in humanity and the idea that home isn’t necessarily where we build walls, it may just be the film we need in the current news cycle. And Jake Xerxes Fussell and James Elkington’s guitar-picking soundtrack stitches it together with love, sounding like aural big skies.
Jesse Hope/Bleecker Street
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of Bleecker Street Rebuildingis in cinemas now
Gavin (Séamus McLean Ross) and bestie Billy (Samuel Bottomley) long for fame as rap duo Silibil N’ Brains. Trouble is they’re two lads from Dundee in the early noughties, and they can’t get a record company to take them seriously as they repeatedly cold call from local payphones. When they’re not dreaming up Eminen-style lyrics, they work in a call centre where code-switching helps them sell internet services; they swap accent and cadence according to the caller. So it’s hardly surprising that their desperation for a music industry break leads to them deciding to adopt American accents and allow a record company to believe they are from California. But as they begin to achieve their dreams, at what price is their compromise on identity?
A mirthful set-up, but made all the more ticklesome by the fact that the tale is true – the real-life twosome boasting less convincing Cali drawls than their on-screen avatars and their story previously being told in 2013 documentary, The Great Hip Hop Hoax. With James McAvoy making his directorial debut with a screenplay by Archie Thomson and Elaine Gracie, the grift of a couple of chancers is turned into a bromance, an underdog fable and a celebration of Scottish singularity. McAvoy also plays a nasty record exec with relish and seems to be dipping from the well of good will vibes that made him a star in Starter For Ten. Gavin and Billy are painted as hopeless dreamers trapped in their own lies, their friendship the greatest casualty of their hoodwinking – Billy’s girlfriend Mary (Lucy Halliday) the integrity of the piece. The fictional record company duped by the duo is populated with ruthless career climbers, cynical money grabbers and snobs, allowing audiences to fully root for the rappers whose ruse is bow-tied as a deliberate exercise in exposing the bigotry of the record industry.
Their likeability is enhanced by Ross and Bottomley’s almost guileless performances. Ross is the child of real Scottish musicians (his parents are Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh) and brings a fury to a man gobbling down a dream knowing it has a limited shelf-life. Bottomley, reminiscent of a Scottish Glen Powell, essays the lure of fame and fortune with a charm and twinkle that outperforms a dreadful mullet. Billy struggles to forget his heritage and rages against the metropolitan elitism and classism controlling entertainment, understanding that to pull away from it is to cause a chasm in a friendship. It’s that relationship that drives investment in a film that is predictable in music-movie highs and lows. But like Silibil and Brains, it’s scrappy, ambitious and ultimately, champions authenticity.
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of StudioCanal CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN’is out in cinemas now
The fuze in question in David Mackenzie’s time-bomb heist thriller is two-fold: it’s the detonator on a world war two incendiary found by construction workers digging up a London site, as well as the nucleus for character motivation. Those characters come into focus when the discovery halts everything within its radius as an army bomb squad led by Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the chief of police (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) work within an evacuated cordon, just as a team of crims – headed up by Theo James with a wonky South African accent and Sam Worthington – start drilling their way into a nearby bank vault. As the police are preoccupied with not blowing Paddington Basin sky high and the streets are deserted, the robbers have a handy window of opportunity. But the big question is; how did they know this random find was about to happen?
Robert Viglasky/Sky UK
It doesn’t take a master criminal to link the clues and uncover the double-crossing and twists loaded into proceedings as plans go wrong and blood is split. A taut and intriguing opener dissipates somewhat amid realisation that Mbatha-Raw is going to get to do nothing more than look quizzically at CCTV screens, and the connections between other characters are signposted. A third-reel explanation flashback and end-credit cards seem almost comedic is their flippancy.
Robert Viglasky/Sky UK
But this is a throwback, Guy Ritchie-adjacent easy watch, elevated by its cast. Taylor-Johnson nails the cocky Afghanistan vet with insubordination issues and sniper skills, while Worthington simmers belligerently under the leadership of James’ flashy point man – the trio imbuing character layers that are not readily provided by the script. And Elham Ehsas adds welcome intrigue as an immigrant living with his frail parents in the apartment building the heist is operating out of. The urban fox trotting through proceedings is also pretty decent.
Robert Viglasky/Sky UK
Technically competent (insistent score, propulsive editing), unapologetically unrealistic and brisk in delivery (98 mins and done), Fuze isn’t likely to linger long in the memory but doesn’t outstay its welcome. It isn’t a bomb, but never fully detonates either.
Robert Viglasky/Sky UK
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of Sky UK Fuze is out in cinemas now
Premiering at Cannes Film Festival last year, self-billed ‘unromantic comedy’ Splitsville was notable for featuring numerous penis gags in a tale of two couples experimenting with open relationships. The appendage in question belongs to Carey (co-writer Kyle Marvin), married to Ashley (Adria Arjona) and on his way to his bestie’s lake house in upstate NY. As the couple drive to their weekend, Ashley offers a blow-job and then divorce leaving Carey with his dick out (literally and metaphorically). His response is to exit the car and run across fields and rivers in an existential panic to the lake house where his bestie, Paul (co-writer, director Michael Angelo Covino) and his elegant wife Julie (Dakota Johnson) admit to mutually sanctioned affairs.
Neon
When Paul disappears to the city, Carey makes a move on Julie, assuming his mate will be fine with it. Paul isn’t, and the duo smash up the quiet luxury home in an epic fight that ruptures their relationships as well as a large fish tank. It’s the catalyst for emotional chaos as Ashley begins dating while still sharing Carey’s house, and Julie wrestles with what (and who) she wants…
Neon
Whether this opener is amusing or self-indulgently tone-deaf defines for each audience member whether this quirky mix of physical comedy, nudity and frank sex chat lands or not. Marvin and Covino previously created The Climb (two friends out cycling who discover one has cheated with the other’s girlfriend) which was a Cannes and TIFF hit, and this veers into similar territory in protagonists behaving like jealous toddlers and fragile male egos being tested. Fans of that will likely enjoy more of the same, newcomers may be bemused as to how either of these men sustain relationships with anyone, let alone the beautiful, well-adjusted and interesting women Johnson and Arjona play.
Neon
That said, Splitsville is unconventional and unexpected. There’s fun to be had in the parade of thoroughly decent men that Ashley brings home, a whole bit at a chaotic child’s birthday party (featuring Succession’s Nicholas Braun as a morose magician), an incident involving goldfish and a rollercoaster, and more full frontal male nudity. It’s never clear where any of it is going as it messily (and incredulously) unwinds – to an ending that seems to run out of steam, but that is also a refreshing change from carbon copy rom-coms. Though the film is intended as a showcase for Marvin and Covino, it’s Johnson and Arjona who really shine, and one can’t help wondering if the gents could write something more robust for this duo to play with for their next project.
Neon
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of Neon Splitsville is out in cinemas now
In our current world of political polarisation, rage baiting, click farming and war, Project Hail Mary – with its belief in cooperation, kindness, self-sacrifice, friendship, and the healing nature of karaoke – is the film we need now. An old-fashioned, four-quadrant, feelgood MOVIE, built for the big screen and for a communal experience, it might not solve world problems but it will certainly provide welcome respite from them.
Ilze Kitshoff/StudioCanal
Like Andy Weir’s previous bestseller adaptation, The Martian, PHM put audiences in an interstellar situation with a lone everyman, trying to figure out how to survive in a hostile environment. This time around it’s Cleveland science teacher and purveyor of great cardies and retro t-shirts, Dr Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) who wakes from a medical coma on a US spaceship 113.9 years from Earth, his colleagues dead and his mission unclear. As the brain fog clears, Grace recalls the threat to Earth that brought him into a galaxy far, far away. Space bugs called astrophage have systematically gone through planets, sucking their lifeforce and our spinning rock is next. Deep in space there’s a single planet, Tau Ceti, that seems immune, so a team is sent on a one-way ticket to find the cure and send it back home.
Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios
Clearly other civilisations have had the same idea, because as Grace nears the planet in question he meets a version of himself, a stone-looking alien he calls ‘Rocky’. Refreshingly, their relationship begins with mutual respect and curiosity, and as the duo develop ways of communication, work together in their make-shift lab and explain the joys of each other’s worlds they form a bromance of the ages. In-between Gosling’s deft physical comedy, the rock/man banter and Neil Scanlon’s tangible puppet design, something emerges that recalls ET and Wall-E: the simple beauty of friendship that crosses species, space and time – between two beings that value each other for their heart, not their provenance.
Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios
Largely powered by Gosling’s considerable charm (with a side helping of Sandra Hüller as the sort of calm, pragmatic commander we might all wish was in control of the world, especially when she starts belting out Harry Styles songs at karaoke), Project Hail Mary is serious enough with the science for a global threat to feel feasible, but skips over logistics to put Grace in some perilous emotional and physical moments. A sequence where the good doctor space walks, tethered to his ship in the great void is reminiscent of the tension of Gravity, while flashbacks of what led him to be part of the crew gives grounding context to heroism. It helps that Rocky is a physical presence and not CGI regurg; voiced by lead puppeteer James Ortiz and played like a super-smart labrador, he’s a warm, sincere character that promises to prompt tears. And there’s a lightness of touch from 12 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and Drew Goddard’s screenplay that manages to make Grace’ critical adventures both funny and heartfelt. Though the final coda feels unnecessary, it won’t offend, and most viewers will leave the cinema buoyed by the belief in collaboration and teamwork. One can only hope some of our world leaders catch a show…
Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios Project Hail Mary is out in cinemas now
